United States Patent Publication No. 20060067237 (Burns), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses a “novel method and system for testing network connections is provided. In an embodiment, the system includes a network, such as the Internet, which is connected to subscriber devices in a subscriber site via an service provider, a gateway in a telephone company central office, and a DSLAM in an open plant interface. The system also includes a test apparatus operable to inject itself in the connection between the subscriber devices and the Internet at the gateway. The test apparatus can mimic the service provider and, thereby connect directly with the device at the subscriber site and try to test network connections for issue between the service provider and the device. The test apparatus can also mimic the customer and, thereby connect directly with the device and the test network connections between the service provider and the device.” See Abstract.
United States Patent Publication No. 20040117475 (Taylor), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses, “[s]ystems and methods for obtaining logical layer information in a frame relay and/or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network are described. In an exemplary embodiment, a physical layer test system, such as an integrated testing and analysis system, communicates with a broadband network management system, which in turn communicates with an element management system for a frame relay and/or ATM network.” See Abstract.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,133,367 (Powers), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses the “present invention relates to a method and apparatus for testing components in ATM networks utilizing loop-back based ATM layer testing. The method and apparatus utilize interfaces and identifier codes to send and loop-back test cells along portions of virtual channels to test the virtual channels.” See Abstract.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,459 (Chuah), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses the “present invention provides system and method of identifying a failure location in any datapath in a set of datapaths in a communication element, each datapath of the set of datapaths traversing from an ingress point through at least a first component to an egress point. In an embodiment, the method comprises: providing a diagnostic cell adapted to be inserted at a starting point upstream of the first component in the any datapath; providing at least a first diagnostic cell counter module adapted to be associated with a first location in the first component, the first diagnostic cell counter module adapted to recognize when the diagnostic cell passes the first location and adapted to track passage of the diagnostic cell past the first location; inserting the diagnostic cell into the any datapath at the starting point; and analyzing the diagnostic cell counter module to identify the failure location in the any datapath.” See Abstract.